Death in the Sky: Session 3

The speeder glided smoothly as Dex deftly maneuvered in and around the skyways of Coruscant until finally coming to a rest in hangar of the Green Glowstone Tavern.

"You two stick together, this place is kinda shady." Dex warned his two partners as he hopped out of the speeder, and strolled into the tavern.

"I will stay here.  I need to write a subroutine to slice the central database that will look for and collate data on 'KV'", Nei stated as she continued working on her datapad.

Liora pulled out her datapad to check to see if she had received the autopsy pictures from her informant yet. The holo-images had appeared, the body of Pell was clearly identifiable, but the body of Aschansa had been so mutilated it took DNA testing simply to determine that it was in fact the body of a Gran.

Turning back Dex said, "Then you two should stay with the speeder.  Here are the keys.. Oh! And if anyone drives up and offers you something, don't go near them."

"Yeah, yeah as if we don't know not to talk to strangers in a shady part of town," Liora said in a mocking tone.

As Dex walked up to the door of the Tavern, a female Herglic stopped him. "What's your business in here?" she asked.

"Oh, you know, I heard this place had the best soup in the sector, so I just simply had to try some of it and see if it was good enough to bring my mother here. She hasn't been feeling too good lately. See, she went swimming last week and caught pneumonia," Dex said sarcastically.

The large Herglic leaned in to Dex's face. "Sorry, bub, this joint ain't mom-friendly. Breeze off," she said as she motioned with her thumb down the alley.

"Now don't be that way. I've been here before, I just want to relax a little bit with a friend I'm meeting here," Dex assured the guard.

The guard relaxed a little, "Glad to see you have a little honesty in you. Don't let it get out, or you might be chiseled." Then, the guard stepped aside and ushered Dex into the tavern.

"Thankyou." Dex muttered as he walked in.

The inside of the tavern was thick with smoke, like gray veil had been lowered over the entire place. Dex stumbled a bit as he stepped down and headed for an open table. As he sat down, Dex searched the room nonchalantly for a familiar face. Of the few patrons who had noticed him, Dex could feel that there was at least one with a definite dislike for him.

"Moonrider," the familiar voice said from behind Dex. "Are you here to cause more trouble?"

"When have I ever caused trouble?" Dex said. As he turned to see who he was addressing, Dex continued, "I may even buy your next drink." Seeing that it was Wyla Chamra, the owner of the tavern, Dex smirked and said, "Or I suppose you don't drink your own cheap stuff, do you?"

"KELDA! Get this...man...out of my place at once! If you let him in again, you're fired!" yelled Wyla.

The large Herglic appeared in the door and moved towards Dex. "Sorry about, this, but gotta do as the boss says," whispered Kelda as she picked Dex up, flopped him over her large shoulder and moved back towards the door.

 

Mumbling to herself and punching on the datapad, Nei began writing her routine. "Let's see, I want to see if there is anyone connected to Aschansa that might be KV.... Check for a con nection to Pell as well... Mmm hmmm... Oh, I should look at when the gaps in Aschansa's records started….yes, and check for other gaps as well..." Nei's line of thought trailed off into her head as she became more focused on her task. To create the most intricate program, Nei attached her Omwati input device and continued by apparently singing her commands. With the last notes and keystrokes, she applied a forged profile and sent it off into the holonet assured that it would both do its duty and remain undetected.

It was only about half an hour later when it returned the information it had gathered. The SecForce had not been keeping an especially close eye on Aschansa or Pell. The normal information about the daily activities of someone of Pell's status was available, but nothing especially remarkable. There was an interesting note about Barret Athaka Pell's twin brother Deell Pell taken from an unofficial, highly secured database. Apparently, the word was that Deell was a bit too loose with the credits and had gotten in some pretty bad debt with Black Sun. Barret Pell's financial records showed regular withdrawals that were never accounted for in his finances that could be linked to Deell's debt, if the information could be trusted.

Aschansa had even less information because of the lesser celebrity status. There was an interesting note about Aschansa. A sizeable sum had been withdrawn from Aschansa's credit account recently, but it was a withdrawal and not a transfer. As far as the gaps in Aschansa's background were concerned, deep scanning of Coruscant Immigration Administration's tertiary archive data banks had resulted in a partial record of Aschansa's DNA.

Once Liora saw that Nei had completed her programming she shared all the Intel with her that she had received from her informant.

"Well, that is quite intriguing.  I wonder if there was more damage on the driver's side or if perhaps the mutilation of Aschansa's body was intentional.  We still need to investigate the cause of the crash.  There has been a similar effort to mutilate his digital identity.  I still do not know who KV might be, but someone withdrew a large some from Aschansa's credit account.  Pell's account had regular withdrawals possibly to cover his twin brother's debt to the Black Sun," Nei informed Liora.

"I'm quite not sure if there was more damage on the driver's side, but I can check with my sources," Liora replied.

"Also inquire as to the cause of the crash.  I will research Pell's brother."  Nei began her routine research.

"Will do." Liora said as she opened her messenger on her datapad and sent her informant a message. Asking him if he could give her the cause of the crash and if the drivers side was damaged more than the other side.

At that moment, a Trandoshan and Devaronian walked up to the speeder.

"Would you be…" the Devaronian looked at his datapad… "one 'Nei Sobri'?" he asked.

"It is considered only polite to give your own identity before asking that of another." Nei replied with guarded cordiality.

"We don't hafe time for thisss," hissed the Trandoshan. "Thisss isss her. Let'sss jussst take her to the bosss."

"Who is your boss?" asked Nei.

The Devaronian ignored Nei's question and turned to the Trandoshan. "Calm down, Khrad, there is no reason to not remain civilized. I'm sure Miss Sobri would be more than happy to meet the boss, wouldn't you, Miss Sobri?"

"Who is your boss?" Nei repeated patiently.

"Now, now, Miss Nei, please don't force me to make a mess here in your...beautiful...speeder. The Boss likes to remain anonymous until such time as a mutual relationship has been established. He does invite you and your attractive companion to meet with him as soon as possible, and the Boss's invitations are not the kind that can be refused."

I'm sorry gentlemen but you have some miss information it seems." Liora finally spoke. She quickly jotted down the address of her speediest associate and handed it to the chatty one and said "Here is where you can get the correct info on this Nei person you are looking for."

The two just looked at each other, and then shook their heads.

"We are awaiting our partner.  If you will give us the address at which your boss would like to meet, we will follow when our third partner returns," Nei added.

"Thisss isss ridiculousss, Odon," hissed Khrad as she pulled a very illegal looking blaster. "You two are coming with usss. You aren't coming later, and we aren't going sssomewhere elssse. You are coming with usss now."

 

Once outside the Green Glowstone, Kelda set Dex back down. "Now, I can't let you back in there. Hopefully your friend will catch up with you somewhere else."

"No worries, kitten, I forgot the scum actually came into work."

Kelda blushed a little, but remained quiet.

"I bet you see most of the people who come in here, have you seen this guy?" Dex asked producing a hologram of the man he had seen at the crash.

Kelda studied the hologram for a minute. "Yeah, I sometimes see him with a few Black Sun. I think he might be a bodyguard."

"I mean have you seen him today? He's my friend I was supposed to meet."

"I haven't seen him today. He's a tough customer, if my instincts are right. You should be careful around him."

"Thanks, but don't worry, I can handle myself. " Dex started to walk away, then turned around, "Oh, and one more question, do you happen to know where he's staying?"

"Nope, I never get involved in Black Sun business as long as it stays outside this place."

"Alright, well thankyou anyways, if you do see him could you let me know?" Dex said as he held out his nonbusiness datacard.

Kelda took the proffered business card and placed it in a pouch on her belt. "I'll let you know if I see him," she said.

Dex smiled and said, "Thanks, you seem like a good person, better than this place for sure." he then turned and went back to the speeder.

Death in the Sky: Session 2

This session was cut off short because of weather. That is not a joke or hyperbole.

 

The screen flashed through a series of beings checking various facial recognition algorithms until it finally flashed a Nikto named Kuna Bravanc on the screen.

"The holonet recognizes the person of your inquiry as being one Kuna Bravanc," Nei informed as she delved into his background. "His record only conclusively shows some minor infractions, however, the authorities suspect he has some connections to the Black Sun...There is nothing further available with these resources. I think this is a lead worth following."

"The Black Sun? This could get pretty serious." Dex cautioned

"Stories involving death are always serious. But, yes, the involvement with the Black Sun is both concerning and intriguing."

"Yeah, especially since they kill people, and there’s possibly an entrepreneur who was killed."

"Well, I say that we pursue this lead. I also need to use a secure data pad to make a transaction really quickly." commented Liora as she pulled out her data pad and followed the given instructions to transfer the credits and contact her new informant.

After a few minutes, the text Yes? appeared on Liora’s datapad.

Please send all information to this address as soon as you have received it. Liora typed in reply.

Will do, came the response.

Liora then signed out of the secure channel and put her datapad away. She then rejoined her colleagues.

"Which lead should we pursue first, the morgue or the Black Sun?" Nei was asking.

Dex suggested, "I don’t want to accuse the Black Sun of anything until I have more information. They aren’t innocent, but that’s no reason to poke a gundark."

"Quite so. I meant should we first go to the morgue or immediately seek Kuna Bravanc."

"Let’s go to the morgue, I’m curious to see who the passenger was," Dex said.

"I'm up for the morgue as well, but shouldn't we check in with Malik first?" Liora suggested.

"I can contact him on the way," Nei proposed as she got in the back seat of their speeder and began typing up the initial report.

"Leave him be. He’s just a grumpy old man who just sits behind his desk and yells at us to do all the work. No need to bother him ‘til we‘re ready to be paid." Dex asserted as he jumped in the driver’s seat.

"He did request that we contact him as soon as we learn more than what he first received. You’d better transmit a report." stated Liora.

"Do as you will," sighed Dex. "In fact do call him up. Tell him I need an advance on this one. It could get dangerous and I want to have some money to leave behind to my children before I die."

"Dex, you do not have children to whom to leave money. But I will relay your implied concern," Nei said as she finished up her report and sent it.

Dex started up the speeder, punched in the navigation coordinates, and took off towards the morgue.

 

It only took about 15 minutes to maneuver the airways and arrive at the morgue. There were a few SecForce officers standing around, but for the most part, the place was dead.

After parking the speeder, the three walked up to the officers.

Three of the officers were too busy smoking to pay any attention to the trio, but the fourth turned to them and asked, "Can I help you?"

"We are just here to identify a body. It could be our great Aunt Tupla. We are the only people available to come make the identification." lied Liora.

The officer looked at the other officers, shook his head ever so slightly, turned back to Liora and said, "Not buying it, sister."

"What, can’t you see the resemblance?" Dex asked sarcastically.

"I am so offended. Our mother would call you a numbskull because you can't see past your own prejudices on how you think a family is supposed to look. We are adopted! Why do you think I can speak your language." Liora shouted with conviction.

"Look, me and my colleagues here are supposed to keep the morgue clear. You can come and identify your aunt later, but for now you gotta scram," the SecForce officer said as two of the others dropped their cigarras, stamped them out, and put their hands on their blasters, ready to draw.

"Perhaps I can illuminate the situation: My colleague is practicing her undercover techniques," Nei began in her most winsome and diplomatic tones. "(You can see why she needs the experience.) We are investigating the crash of Barret Athaka Pell’s speeder and would like to see the the Gran and Cerean if you would be so kind as to show us."

The officer crossed his arms, "No dice, doll. Orders is orders."

"In that case," Nei continued, "Might we use your communications room for a short time?"

"You can’t enter the morgue until the chief takes it off lockdown. He doesn’t want anybody snooping around for a while."

"I see. Thank you officer." Nei returned to the speeder with Liora and Dex in tow.

"Alright, I suppose we should go visit Mr. Bravanc, and see what he was doing earlier today." Dex suggested to the group.

Liora’s datapad beeped. The Cerean’s body has been positively identified as Pell. The Gran’s remains are in too bad shape to positively identify, but it is assumed that it is Pell’s chauffeur, Riyan Aschansa. There are no DNA records on Aschansa in the system. Liora knew it was very strange for someone with such a high-profile job to have no records. There would normally be immigration examinations, hiring examinations, and he would have been required to perform yearly check ups by someone as important as Pell.

Liora related the information that she just received and then asked Nei, "Can you check up on this Riyan Aschansa character and see what you can find on him?"

"Certainly," Nei pulled out her datapad as she slid into the back of the speeder.

Liora followed Nei into the speeder, anxious to hear more about the chauffeur. She also thought to herself that her credits were well spent.

Once seated in the speeder Liora pulled out her datapad to reply to her informant. Thanks for the information. I would also like to see pictures and the autopsy report asap, she typed.

Nei’s datapad spat out some information about Aschansa, but there were a lot of gaps that were not normal in Coruscant’s HoloNet.

"Hmmm, how odd...there is quite a bit of information lacking on Aschansa. In the meantime, perhaps we should seek out Bravanc." Nei began to search for the missing gaps in Aschansa’s profile. The system logs showed that various sections of Aschansa’s official profile had been deleted recently. The logs simply had the mnemonic KV as the identity of the one who had deleted the profile.

Dex, started up the speeder and headed towards the Green Glowstone Tavern.

Death in the Sky: Session 1

"Liora! Nei! Dex! Get in here!" shouted Malik Schmidt, editor of the Galactic City Herald, from his office.

"Coming, sir!" called Neo as she entered the office.

Liora got off the comlink with her newest informant, Cutter Dahn and headed to Malik's office.

Dex finished reading the paragraph in his book, set it down and casually strolled to the office.

"Thank you so much for joining us, Dex," Malik sarcastically quipped. "Word just came in. Barret Athaka Pell's private speeder crashed. The SecForce is on their way. I want you guys to give me a full report."

Everyone knew Barret Athaka Pell was the president of Pangance Dynamics, and one of the wealthiest men on Coruscant, if not the galaxy.

"So what's the scoop that you received on this little crash?" Liora asked of Malik.

Nei pulled out her datapad and opened the file she already had on Pangance Dynamics to review and amend it. She noticed that Barett owned a custom enclosed PL-90 Luxury Speeder.

"The news literally just came over the SecForce comchannel. There isn't even any feedback from the SecForce since they haven't arrived yet. The report says that the speeder exploded on impact, and there is no word on who was in the speeder when it crashed."

"Alright, well I'm gonna go contact my informant on the link then I'll get right over to the scene." commented Liora ask she exited the office.

"Contact them on the way. I want to be first on this one," replied Malik.

"Yeah, yeah that's what I meant." Liora mumbled under her breath.

Nei got into the back seat of the company speeder and began monitoring for any reports on the HoloNet as well as researching background on Barret Athaka Pell and his Luxury Speeder.

Liora punched in the link number for Cutter and waited till he answered the communication. Cutter Dahn replied that he hadn't heard anything about the crash yet, but he would keep his ears open. Liora thanked Cutter and ended the communication. Then she hopped into the speeder next to Nei.

As they approached the crash site, they could see SecForce had cordoned off the area and weren't letting anyone through. SecForce officers recognized the Galactic City Herald speeder and waved it through. At the crash site SecForce investigators had already begun examining the wreckage and bagging up the (admittedly quite few) larger pieces for more detailed analysis at the labs.

"Why was the speeder so obliterated?" Pondered Nei aloud. She then went to the speeder crash and looked for the speeder's computer core to download while using the excuse of instructing the camdroid to make hologram recordings should anyone question or being so close to the crash. The data was incomplete and damaged and the SecForce wasn't going to let her do it if they caught on, but she managed to insert some computer spikes and get the data that was there without any officer noticing. She then examined the crash itself to see if anything looked odd or out of place. Nothing jumped out, so she went to some nearby officers.

"Good day, officers, I'm with the Galactic City Herald. Would you care to comment on whether or not there were any survivors?

"No, ma'am, there were none," one of them replied. "But we found two bodies in the wreckage."

"Any idea who they were?"

"We only know that one was a Gran and the other was a Cerean. We have no further comments until positive identification is made and relatives are notified," the officer said.

"Cerean? Is it possible that Pell was a casualty?"

The SecForce officer had no comment.

"Where were the bodies taken?" Nei continued.

"The bodies were taken to district 8011's morgue 38."

 

While Nei and Dex were looking about Liora noticed one of the SecForce officers that was alone cataloging the evidence and went to speak with him. "Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you have been able to see anything that could have caused this wreck from the stuff you have gathered so far?" Liora asked the officer.

"Based on eyewitnesses, it seems like the coolant pump failed and the power generator overloaded, but that's just speculation until the lab has had a chance to analyze it," the Ithorian officer replied.

"So do you think that the craft's engine was tampered with?" Liora questioned.

"I do not have the analysis to determine that at this time," she said.

"So what would a girl have to do to get a first look at the analysis once you have it?" Liora asked the officer.

"That depends, how much do you want to see it?" asked the Ithorian, quietly.

"Well, I'd be willing to come to some type of payment agreement with you if you were willing to be one of my full time informants." replied Liora.

"If you can keep me happy, and out of trouble, I could probably let you in on a few of the inner workings of the SecForce. Here…" the Ithorian whispered as she surreptitiously dropped a data chip on the ground.

Liora looked around to make sure no one was coming up on their conversation and said, "How much to keep you happy?"

The Ithorian straightened up. "I'm sorry ma'am, but I can't give you any more information than I have. You'll need to move along. The SecForce will have an official press conference when we have our findings," she said in a slightly louder than necessary voice.

"Thank you for all your help officer." Liora stated as she bent down to tie her boot lace and she picked up the chip. While kneeling she slipped her comm number into the side of the officer's boot, stood up and walked away toward their own speeder.

 

Dex scanned the area to see if anyone looked suspicious. He recognized that a man skirting the crowd outside the cordon and moving away had a guilty aura about him. Dex nonchalantly made his way towards the man's direction, and told his cam droid to go higher than normal to get a holopic of everyone on the scene, especially the guilty guy. The droid climbed higher and snapped the pic. The guy ducked down an alley and disappeared. Dex dashed towards the alley and looked for any sign of where the man went, but there was no sign of the man anywhere. finding nothing left to find. Dex returned to the gathered crowd and started asking the crowd if anyone saw what happened.

A rodian with a slight build and wearing a sanitation suit said he'd seen the entire thing.

"How did they crash?"

The rodian got really excited. "They were flying towards the financial quarter when the speeder began whining. Flames appeared in the repulsors and it fell from the sky. It exploded right before it hit the ground." He used his hands to reenact the scene as he described it.

"Who all was in the speeder?"

"I couldn't see who was in the speeder. It was a custom job with screened windows," said the rodian as his hands crossed each other indicating just how much he could not see.

"was it just the pilot, or were there passengers?

The rodian crossed his hands again, "Like I said, I couldn't see anything."

"Who are you, what were you doing?"

"My name is Ween Tomu. I work at the sanitation plant and just finished my shift. I was walking home when I saw it happen. I recognized the speeder as being Barett Athaka Pell's and immediately reported the crash on the public comlink over there," he said as he pointed to a comstation on the side of the street. "The wreckage was still on fire, and the passenger section was completely destroyed, so I didn't approach it."

"Alright, thank you for the info. if you think of anything else let me know." Dex said as he handed Ween his data chip.

 

Liora went back at the speeder and used her datapad to check and see what was on the chip that the officer had dropped on the ground.

The chip showed that the officer was named Moza Moomo, and had a secure account number along with a small amount of info detailing what kind of credits were needed in order to ensure exclusive reports on certain inner workings of the SecForce.

Having read the information on the data pad, Liora removed the chip and dropped the chip into her secret pocket inside her vest.

 

At the speeder, Nei began decrypting the information she had retrieved from the speeder. "Nothing looked terribly out of place at the crash site," she relayed to her companions.

The data from the speeder's computer core had been damaged, and was incomplete. Nei could tell that the data would need to be analyzed by a fractal algorithm in order to be recreated. She had the equipment back at her lab, and the process would have to wait until she had a chance to get back there.

 

"Nei, can you run this guy through the system and find out who he is? i think he's involved somehow." Dex said as he showed Nei the guilty guy on his viewscreen.

"Certainly," Nei began to research. "There were two casualties: a Gran and a Cerean. The officer wouldn't identify the Cerean as Pell, but it's not an illogical jump. The bodies were taken to District 8011 Morgue 38"

Introduction

This blog will recount the adventures of an intrepid team of HoloNet news reporters for the Galactic City Herald as they investigate crimes and the criminals that commit them on Coruscant.